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Buying a gun online in Houston

Order here, pick it up at a licensed dealer anywhere in the metro. Same rules as the rest of Texas, and the F1 Firearms parts shelf lives here.

Houston is the biggest gun market in the state and one of the biggest in the country. The metro sprawls across Harris County and into Fort Bend, Montgomery, Brazoria and Galveston, and almost every corner of it has a gun shop, pawn shop or sporting-goods counter that does transfers. That is the whole trick to buying online: you pick the dealer, we ship to them, and the paperwork happens at their counter. What Houstonians buy leans toward carry pistols for a city that spends nine months a year in shorts, AR-15s for the range and for hogs on the prairie, and shotguns for the Katy rice fields in September.

1. Pick your dealer

Any FFL in Houston, Katy, Cypress, Pasadena, Pearland, Sugar Land, Humble, Baytown or The Woodlands that accepts shipped transfers. Call and ask the fee.

2. Order here

Name that dealer at checkout. We get a copy of the license before the gun ships. Parts and ammo ship to your door.

3. Paperwork

ATF Form 4473 at the counter, and the dealer runs the check through FBI NICS or uses your LTC.

4. Same visit

Texas has no waiting period. A "proceed" answer means the gun goes home with you.

What to bring to the dealer

Government photo ID with your current address. A Texas driver license or ID card is easiest; if it shows an old address, bring a document the dealer accepts to prove the new one.
The transfer fee, paid to the shop. Around Houston it commonly runs $20 to $50, sometimes more for a shop that does a lot of them. Call ahead.
Your order number so they can match the box to you.
Your LTC, if you have one. It can replace the NICS call at the dealer's option.

Harris County rules

There are none beyond state and federal law. Texas preempts local firearm regulation (Local Government Code 229.001 for cities, 236.002 for counties), so Houston, Pasadena, Katy, Sugar Land and unincorporated Harris County cannot add permits, registration, waiting periods or magazine limits of their own. No permit to buy, no registration, no waiting period. Carry without a license is legal for qualifying adults 21 and older; the Texas DPS License to Carry is optional and still useful. The one local rule that matters day to day is the city ordinance against discharging a firearm inside Houston city limits, which state law leaves to the city.

General information, not legal advice. The statutes are collected on our Texas gun law page, and a Texas attorney can answer questions about your own situation.

Heat, humidity and the gun you actually carry

Houston is the test case for everyday carry. A full-size pistol carried in January is in the truck console by June. Most people who stick with it settle on a micro-compact or compact 9mm in a proper inside-the-waistband holster, and they pick a finish that shrugs off sweat. Stainless slides, nitride and Cerakote all hold up; bare blued steel does not. Run a magazine through the gun every month, because humidity and lint find the ones that sit.

F1 Firearms parts, shipped from our shelf

This store carries about 150 F1 Firearms items from its own stock: skeletonized handguards, matched billet receiver sets, barrels, bolt carrier groups, muzzle devices and complete build kits. Handguards, barrels and BCGs ship straight to your Houston address. Receiver sets and stripped lowers are firearms under federal law and go to your FFL like a complete rifle. If you are building an AR for hogs or for a 3-gun match at one of the clubs north of the city, start on the F1 Firearms shelf.

Hunting around Houston

Dove opens September 1 in the North and Central zones, and the fields around Katy, Waller and Sealy fill up at dawn. Feral hogs are everywhere from the coastal prairie to the Trinity bottoms and can be hunted year-round on private land without a license (Parks and Wildlife Code 42.002). Whitetail general season opens the first Saturday of November; the timber counties to the north and east are the closest deer ground. Waterfowl on the coastal marshes from Anahuac to Matagorda need non-toxic shot and a federal duck stamp. TPWD sets the rest, and the Outdoor Annual is the reference. See our hog and deer rifle guide for calibers.